Other People's Words
by I Am Not Amused
Summary: Each Charah drabble is based on a movie quote. Two final chapters. Quotes from Bad News Bears and While You Were Sleeping. I've decided to close this drabble compilation. I've also included very important author's note as the 31st chapter. Thank you.
1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"I was thinking how nothing lasts, and what a shame that is."

- Benjamin Button, _The Curious Case of Benjamin Button_

They are two people of roughly the same age who are in love with each other, but whose clocks are simply running in different directions, and who only have one moment - one burning passionate moment that will define them both forever but it's still just one moment - to point to and say that it had ever been real, had ever been more than a sprawling daydream.


	2. Garden State

"Maybe that's all family really is: a group of people that all miss the same imaginary place."

- Andrew Largeman, _Garden State_

It was one thing they both had in common, fucked up relationships with their families. Her dad taught her how to scam people and throw knives. His father taught him, well, nothing. Neither of them had any sort of relationship with their mothers. It doesn't happen often, people being raised by in a single parent environment and the single parent is a man, and she notes that, files it away as important even though it probably isn't.

On the second of his own personal Mother's Day holiday that she spends with him and his sister, he doesn't need to explain the day any more, but it inexplicably hits even harder now that he's met her dad. Maybe it's just because, for once, he knows something about her that she doesn't know about him: How the one interacts with their father. It's an imaginary advantage, but one that eats at her until they meet his dad and she realizes the relationships they have with their fathers are still the same. As if they had unknowingly always been searching for the same place.


	3. Stranger Than Fiction

"I brought you flours."

- Harold Crick, _Stranger Than Fiction_

She watches him take over the TV section of the BuyMore to tape a little girl's ballet recital. As he turns to come back to her, she realizes her smile had been slightly more real than calculated and she thanks Harry Tang that he stops the taller man, giving her the opportunity to simply leave her card. Even if it had only been 51% real and 49% the mission, it is the first time those numbers are skewed that way outside of Bryce for a long time. And that is dangerous. His gesture is disarmingly sweet, and gets to her and she thinks for part of the date they eventually go on that it was a single moment that changed everything between them and he hadn't even realized it.


	4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

"I wish I had stayed, too.  
_Now_, I wish I had stayed.  
I wish I had done a lot of things.  
I wish I had... I wish I had stayed.  
I do."

- Joel Barish, _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_

On his sister's couch, beard and cheese balls and unemployed and it used to be ten messages a day and then just five and now he doesn't bother to call, can't stand to hear her voicemail again. He wishes he would have left with her, wishes Sarah would have grabbed his wrist as he turned away in Prague, wishes he had just destroyed the damn computer like Bryce had said, wishes he had the strength to be a spy, or the strength to choose not being a spy, but he settled for something safer. Maybe he knew he'd fail. Everyone else seemed to.


	5. Clerks

"You know, there's a million fine looking women in the world, dude.  
But they don't all bring you lasagna at work.  
Most of 'em just cheat on you."

- Silent Bob, _Clerks_

It's a simple fact that he doesn't want to accept that she has de facto cheated on him on two separate occasions over the course of their "relationship." At least in the two times he has been with other women he has had the decency to break up with her first.


	6. Cloverfield

"Youre not good enough for her.  
That's it. That's fact. That's science.  
Beth McIntyre is, like, from a whole other planet, man.  
She's beautiful, she's charming.  
And you, I love you, but let's face it, you're kind of a douchebag.  
And going to Japan isn't going to change that."

-Jason Hawkins, _Cloverfield_

In the middle of kissing Hannah he panics for a second, thinking wildly that Sarah Walker is maybe the most amazing woman - most amazing _person_ - he's ever met in his life, and she chose _him_. And he realizes, not for the first time, that walking away from her in Prague was a huge mistakes and he wishes he could take it back and rewind back to that day. Because he's still halfway hopeless Chuck who needs to rely on her and Casey (and now Shaw) to help him along. Hannah opens her eyes because he stopped kissing her, so he continues and she smiles, so he smiles. Deciding to stay in Prague didn't change him, regardless of how desperately he wanted it to.


	7. High Fidelity

"How does an average guy like me become the number one lover-man in his particular postal district?  
He's grumpy, he's broke, he hangs out with the musical moron twins..."

- Rob Gordon, _High Fidelity_

As he wakes he begins to realize that he's not in his room and, even more strangely, he's sleeping next to someone, someone who is playing with the fingers of his hand. At some point in the night he must have snuggled up next to Sarah, and now she is playing with the fingers of his hand, entwining them with hers experimentally. He looks down at them, trying to understand through the post-waking haze if this is real or an elaborate (please don't let it be a) fantasy. He sees her own eyes open as he looks down and waits for her hand to retract, but instead she grabs one of his fingers and shifts so she can look into his eyes.

Their faces are inches apart and there is no CIA or NSA or Fulcrum to stop them, for all either of them care they don't exist. He sees her eyes, the ones that are closed off and guarded all the time, even a few hours ago when he asked her what would happen next, and they are wide open and he can see every emotion she ever tried to hold back pouring out of her and he thinks how much _pain _she had to have been in, and he realizes that he did nothing to help it.

The kiss is as much for her as it is for him, a wordless apology for every time he overstepped his bounds, trying to understand where this was. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_, but quickly the kisses grow more passionate and feverish and he doesn't understand how he (_he)_ could get her (_her_). He tells her not to move, not to breathe, to stay there, and she holds up her hands innocently, indicating she wouldn't be going anywhere, and it's such a reactionary gesture from someone who is normally so in control that his heart almost bursts.

How did he get so lucky?


	8. Reign Over Me

"I don't need to talk about her or look at pictures.  
Because the truth of it is, a lot of times, I see her.  
On the street.  
I walk down the street, I see her in someone else's face.  
Clearer than any of the pictures you carry with you."

- Charlie Fineman, _Reign Over Me_

Ellie wants her to talk about his situation, his "romantic" situation, ever since he got back. She only relents once the beard grows over an inch, but then starts back in once it's over two. Aside from the phone calls that Ellie knows she shouldn't listen in on but does anyway, he never mentions her name. He doesn't need to. Some days he feels like he sees her in the background of a news broadcast, or in the corner of a helicopter's traffic report shot.

Although he doesn't know it, sometimes he's right.


	9. Serenity

"I aim to misbehave."

- Captain Malcolm Reynolds, _Serenity_.

He gets out of the car.


	10. Batman Begins

"I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you."

- Bruce Wayne, _Batman Begins_

He doesn't think he can begin to count the number of times he has changed his mind about Jill, but the time that changes his mind for good is when he sees Jill staring _her_ down in the sights of her pistol. He knows that if he were a real spy he'd knock her out, or take her gun away, but instead he does something that would normally make him feel sick, but to save _her_ it just seems natural. When the cuffs lock on Jill's hands, he should probably hate himself for it, but he doesn't.


	11. Love Actually

"It's a self-preservation thing, you see."

- Mark, _Love Actually_

When she chooses to stay over going with Bryce, she pulls away from him. When he goes to Lou, she pulls away from him. When he goes to Jill, she pulls away from him. When the General Beckman tells her his life is in danger after the Suburbs incident, she pulls away. When Alex Forrest shows up, she pulls away. When Prague happens, she pulls away from him.

If there's one thing that he has forced her to improve, it's her sense of self-preservation.


	12. Where the Wild Things Are

"Happiness isn't always the best way to be happy."

- Judith, _Where the Wild Things Are_

He is standing on one end of the train station and she is standing on the other. He walks toward her slowly, and with each step he is both closer and farther away from happiness. He wants to give in, to just live a life and be happy with her but he knows that it would kill him to leave Ellie, Awesome, Morgan, even Casey. So he knows he has to put the ticket back into her hand, even when her lips on his feel like warm raindrops.

OR

He is turning his back on her, leaving her crestfallen in his wake and with each step he is both closer and farther away from happiness. He wants to protect everyone, to be there to save the ones he loves and the ones that he doesn't even know. When he broke, there was no one there to pick up the pieces until she came along. Now he can be that for someone, anyone, everyone else, and that thought makes him want to smile. But each sound of his shoes slapping against the cement of the platform makes him think that he's leaving the best thing that ever happened to him, his one true chance at real happiness, but he doesn't know how to turn around.

OR

She is standing on one end of the train station and he is standing on the other, and she watches him walk towards her and she sees her happiness both approaching and retreating with each one of his steps. She is happy she has finally given in to him, finally admitted to him everything she ever wanted. Admitted that he is more important than spying, than the CIA, than everything. But as his shadow begins to reach her, she wonders if she'll ever be able to forget about all the lives they both could be saving if they stay Walker and Bartowski, instead of the Calderons. She wonders if it will ever eat at her, and she tries not to answer the question.

OR

He is turning his back on her, leaving her crestfallen in his wake and she watches him walk away from her and she sees her happiness both approaching and retreating with each one of his steps. An unfamiliar feeling rests in the vicinity of her gut, torn out and splattered on the platform. She doesn't think she will ever be happy without him, without his kind smile and earnest eyes, in her life. But as he walks away she remembers, even if it is coldly and bitterly, why being a spy made her happy in the first place. Helping people who couldn't help themselves, or didn't even know they needed help, and she wants to die and live forever all in that same instant.


	13. The Dark Knight

"Things were always going to get worse before they got better."

- Alfred Pennyworth, _The Dark Knight_

She kissed him and her name is Sam. She kissed him. Her name is Sam. He's not sure which of those two facts is most troubling as he practically teleports the distance between the two buildings. He thinks it probably doesn't matter. He thinks he's more hurt than he's ever been in the past eight years. He thinks for a moment of finding out about Jill and Bryce. And then of his mother leaving. And then of his father leaving. Ellie getting married and moving out (and it's not leaving, he tries to tell himself, it's really not).

Ellie and him. The lost children, raising themselves. Lord of the Flies. Trying to govern themselves and now the rules are falling apart because the adults finally came. He thought for a moment they would smuggle him out. He wouldn't have to be (to mix up literary allegories) Peter Pan anymore. Jill changed him from Pinocchio into a real boy, but her leaving left him in stasis. Her and Casey and the Intersect, he thought could pull him out of Neverland. Grow up. But he'll never be able to really leave that island.

She kissed him and her name is Sam and he is watching her leave him on the beach.

Everyone always leaves.


	14. The Science of Sleep

"You have a serious problem of distorting reality.  
You could sleep with the entire planet and still feel rejected."

- Stephanie, _The Science of Sleep_

If she had the heart she'd throw in his face a picture of every beautiful girl he'd woken up next to in the past three years (and she was one of them, dammit) just so he could see that he wasn't always the victim. Wasn't always the tragic, reluctant hero. Sometimes he made the wrong decisions and sometimes he was the one to hurt them (and she was one of them, dammit). And just because he had it in his head that he would always be the one left behind didn't mean that he should have at least given it a chance. None of them had left him. He was the one leaving them.

And she was one of them, dammit.


	15. The Holiday

"I am in love with you.  
I apologize for the blunt delivery.  
But, as problematic as this fact may be, I am in love.  
With you."

- Graham, _The Holiday_

There were exactly 182 seconds between the time that she asks him to dance and when they are interrupted by his father. There were exactly 348 seconds between when he woke up wrapped around her and when Casey grabbed him outside their Barstow motel. There were exactly 11 seconds between when she asked him to run away with him and when he agreed. There were exactly 93 seconds between when he saw her on the platform in Prague and when he folded the tickets back into her hand. Their first kiss - real kiss - lasted exactly 12 seconds.

He counts, in his head he counts, the time of these important moments. 646 seconds where he can say definitively (he hopes) that their love was completely unobscured. He counts them because he loves her, can't help but love her, and each tick of his government-issued watch is precious to him.

Ten minutes and forty-six seconds may not seem like a lot of time over the course of three years, but when she finally smiles at him again - just for him and no one else -he thinks they may be the most precious ten minutes and forty-six seconds of his life.

And counting.

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**A/N: Unlike the other chapters, this one takes place in the future of the series. I feel pretty confident that Sarah and Chuck pseudo being happy together will happen at some point in Season 3. Thanks to jocular monoceros, NickyR, holst, Representin' All Day, and CiciRose for their reviews. I appreciate it.**


	16. Juno

"I don't know what kind of girl I am."

- Juno MacGuff, _Juno_

She has had a lot of first names. She has also had a lot of last names. Strangely, one thing they don't give you as a spy is a distinct middle name. Mostly because it is innocuous enough that you can use your real middle name and it doesn't matter. It's not pertinent information to someone trying to torture you. It doesn't lead to any clues about your pre-spy identity. It's one of the few things that's left up to your own discretion. In a way, her middle name had always been Lisa and her middle name hadn't been Lisa since she first took on a different identity to help her father con someone.

Each first name and last name has been a different girl. Who was Sam? It's hard to remember who Sam was, really. A time long before her personality had fully formed. More just hints of the woman she should become. Jenny was easier to define: an awkward pubescent teenager with the hidden pressures of a criminal father. Katie O'Connell and Rebecca Franco at least were prepubescent, when everyone was awkward looking and odd in their own way, so she didn't have to deal with as much agony in her school life as she did in her home life. And Sarah Walker. Sarah Walker was beautiful, capable and confident. She liked extra pickles on her cheeseburgers and no olives on her pizza. She worked out when she was stressed and deflected questions (and knives) with ease.

It's hard to say who of those people she truly was. All of them. None of them.

She's had a lot of first names and a lot of last names, and they all correspond to different people she has been will be is. But she has only one name that encompasses all of them. And he's the only one she's ever told it to. A whispered, hear me don't hear me plea, but she told it to him.

She's told Shaw one of the many names she's had, the name she was given and she tries to think that it means something.

But it doesn't.

She told him the only name she's always had - will always have - and she tries to think that doesn't mean anything.

But it does.


	17. Forrest Gump

"Hello. My name is Forrest, Forrest Gump."

- Forrest Gump, _Forrest Gump_

It is disgustingly easy to forget how screwed up his life has been when he smiles. He smiles a lot, and there's a part of her that doesn't think he should be able to smile so readily, so easily, so truthfully, when so much of his life has gone wrong. They stand there, watching Jeff and Lester perform some ridiculous song (She just thought she watched him explode into pieces, burnt beyond recognition and her CIA training tells her how many pieces he was supposed to be in, where they would all end up, where his watch would land if he had it on, the temperature his skin would have been at, how long he would have felt the pain before feeling nothing at all) and she sees him smile at her.

That smile, with it one would never know his mother left him and broke his heart, would never know his father left him and broke his heart, would never know Jill left him and broke his heart. Would never even know how often she had broken (and mended and broken and mended, forever and ever) his heart. It's a simple smile, maybe of someone who seems to be over his head, but she knows he isn't.

It shows that he's strong. Stronger than her, sometimes. He says that he can't push his emotions down but she would never have survived the ordeals that he went through. He said that he didn't have parents so plainly and simply and truly and without self-indulgence that its the very reason she throws his explanations about his relationship with Morgan back in his face. She knows that confronted when she was confronted with the same situations she ran into the - if not comforting than at least supportive and strong - arms of the CIA. He had to deal with the reality, the raw unadulterated reality, every day while she could simply slip into a new name when one got to be too much.

He told her his name on the first day they met, and all it was was his name. Every time he says it it is just his name. Hello, my name is Chuck. Chuck Bartowski. And then he smiles. Somehow, after everything he has been through, he honestly smiles. She turns away from Jeffster for a moment to squeeze his hand one more time and look at him, just to see it one more time.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to NickyR, jagged1, ILgolfer, jocular monoceros and Representin' All Day for their reviews. Took me so effing long to find an adequate quote for this idea. Hope you like it.**


	18. The Wedding Date

"The hardest thing is loving someone,  
and then having the courage to let them love you back."

- Nick Mercer, _The Wedding Date_

She has a list in her head, of the questions that he has asked or that people have asked about him that she has deliberately avoided the answer, or intentionally misrepresented the truth.

"Can you tell me your name? Your real name?"

"That's not true, right? You and Bryce, that's not true, right?"

"Did you kiss me that night beccause mine were the most convenient lips around, or was it actually about me?"

"How long have you and Charles been cavorting?"

"But that's just another lie, isn't it? We'll never really be together?"

"What about when it's not your job? What happens then?"

"Will you do me the honor of taking a vacation with me?"

"Walker, you broke the cardinal rule of spying, didn't you?"

"Sarah, do you still have feelings for my brother?"

She doesn't know exactly why she keeps it, tucked away like the hair behind her ear. Maybe it's because his brutal honesty when encountered with any question causes such a gut punch that she feels like she needs to be the counterbalance, the yin to his yang.

But more than likely it's because he's been so honest with his feelings for her, that it scares her to be the same towards him.

Everything about trying to love him has been hard.

Washington D.C. (Shaw) is easy.

And she's so tired.

* * *

**A/N: This quote was requested by anger without enthusiasm. Hope I did it justice! Thanks for the request. Also thanks to NickyR and jagged1 for their reviews.**


	19. Chasing Amy

"One minute, five seconds.  
You are such my bitch."

- Alyssa Jones, _Chasing Amy_

She likes tease him about their strange relationship. From suppressing a maniacal grin when she asked him what her most dangerous situation would be, to asking him if it would be so bad kissing her good night, to simply dressing up as Princess Leia, to "Save you later." It's why now, on their second first date, as he hesitates over Morgan easily believing them to be a real couple, she feels the need to tease the compliments out of him. She's never had a sense of humor about interpersonal relationships before, or about much of anything. She told him as much on their first first date. But he gave her one. He gave her a way to make him laugh. She figures that the best way to repay him is by using it.

"What about me?"

"You're really going to make me say it?"

She tilts her head playfully from one side to the other, fighting a wide grin and it's the first time (but not the last time) she realizes that she would run away from all of this with him. She acts like she's in control, but she's not.

She's so desperately not.

She smiles again.


	20. The Wrestler

"I just want to tell you, I'm the one who was supposed to take care of everything.  
I'm the one who was supposed to make everything okay for everybody.  
It just didn't work out like that.  
And I left.  
I left you."

- Randy Robinson, _The Wrestler_

He feels like he is fumbling for words in the dark, trying to express something he doesn't fully understand himself. What he does know is that he wishes he had run away with her _and_ he wishes he could stay and protect everyone _and_ he wishes he could have a normal life _and_ he wishes he could be a spy. He wishes there were some way he could have gone that would have saved everyone. But as Sarah goes with Shaw and Casey is kicked out of the NSA and Awesome wants to take Ellie as far away from him as possible, he sees instead everything as glass shards too numerous to put back together, too sharp to even touch.


	21. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of love:  
Avoid, if at all possible."

- The Book, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

He remembers asking Morgan to twist the ropes to the swing around until they were twisted from top to bottom, with only enough room for him to be seated in the swing. He remembers spinning, spinning, spinning, seeming like it would go forever. He remembers the first half being fun. Exhilarating, even. Then, things looking progressively worse, and a feeling creeping into his stomach that all wasn't right, and finally a desire to make it all stop, until it finally does and he gets off on his hands and knees and pukes all over the park ground. Later, telling Ellie about it, he was equal parts grateful and put off when she told him to avoid doing that ever again. Since that moment, he had intentionally avoided any and all swing sets, never trying the stunt again.

He can't help but think, now, watching her kiss Shaw just as he had worked up the courage to tell her that he loved her, that his entire relationship with her has been a bit like that moment. Except this time, Ellie was telling him to get back on the swing.

He thinks maybe this time, he can.


	22. Iron Man

"If I _were_ Iron Man, I'd have this girlfriend who knew my true identity. She'd be a wreck. She'd always be worrying I was going to die, yet so proud of the man I've become. She'd be wildly conflicted, which would only make her more crazy about me."

- Tony Stark, _Iron Man_

Knowing that he's in danger and being unable to do anything about it, even now (after Intersect 2.0, after Prague, after Hannah, her with Shaw), is terrifying. She hates him for wanting to be a spy, hates him for throwing himself into danger at every opportunity, hates him for always trying to do the right thing by everyone else, instead of the right thing by just him. He's too good. Too good for spying, too good for the lies, too good for her, too good to her. She loves his self-sacrificing nature and hates that he feels the need to sacrifice himself. She loves his kindness and honesty and trustworthiness and hates that he wants to put himself in a position to lose that. She loves his smile and she hates that she doesn't hate him.

She thinks he's a little bit like a super hero. With super powers and all. Like Batman, all skills and talents but still vulnerable and mortal. Apropos nothing, she remembers him calling her Vicki Vale on the first day they met, and when she begs Shaw not to set Castle to self-destruct, her voice is maybe a little more frantic than it absolutely needs to be. For some reason, she wants (needs) to hear Batman call her Vicki Vale again.


	23. A Very Potter Musical

"So, we kissed.  
And I thought we were gonna be together forever.  
But we're not."

- Ginny Weasley, _A Very Potter Musical_

They stand, squared off, in front of a Christmas tree of all things and part of him can still feel her against him, how he felt her pulse through her lips. She refers to their kiss in front of Bryce's storage container as "the incident" and it's such a clinical and detached term for something he thought was important that it cuts his legs out from under him. As she walks away and slams the door behind her, he closes his eyes, seeing another woman he loved walk away from him.

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**A/N: Thanks so much to EdieRose, jagged 1, jocular monoceros, ffreader, and you_re_such_a_nerd for their reviews. I know this quote isn't really from a movie, but it was so freaking perfect that I couldn't avoid using it. If you haven't seen **_**A Very Potter Musical**_**, then do yourself a favor and YouTube it.**


	24. About A Boy

"I want to be more with her.  
I want to be with her all the time.  
And I want to tell her things I don't even tell you or mum.  
And I don't want her to have another boyfriend.  
I suppose if I could have all those things, I wouldn't really mind if I touched her or not."

- Marcus, _About A Boy_

It only takes a hundredth of a second for the bullet to travel from the tip of his gun to Shaw's chest, but it feels like little lifetimes, and in each one all he can hear is her snapping, "You _killed_ someone, Chuck!" And turning her back on him. But that's okay. She can hate him after this and they can never embrace or kiss or love each other again. He's willing to give that up just to know that she's alive. Even if it isn't with him. Even if it's off in Paraguay quelling a revolution with a fork.

He's always been willing to sacrifice himself to save her. Sacrificing her love to save her, though, was so much harder. In that hundredth of a second, in all those little lifetimes, he never sees her with him again.

And he never sees himself regret the choice.


	25. Clerks II

"How the fuck do you always have, like, two good looking girls who want you?"

- Randal Graves, _Clerks II_

He stands equidistant between the petite Lou, adorable and endearing with her sandwiches and sundresses, and Sarah, sexy and simple with her black tank top and simultaneous doting smile and territorial attitude, and he feels trapped by who he can feel something for and who he wants to be able to feel something for.

OR

She's not entirely familiar with the concept of heartbreak, but all it takes is him telling Jill that he's not over her only a few days after they shared their moment watching that satellite burn, only a few weeks after him telling her he knew who she was (and her believing him), to come to an pretty intimate understanding.


	26. 500 Days of Summer

"Darling, I don't know how to tell you this, but there's a Chinese family in our bathroom."

- Tom Hansen, _(500) Days of Summer_

Sometimes they lay there, looking at each other in a post-coital glow, and laugh at the compartment service guy's face whenever she answers the door in skimpy lingerie, or laugh at a story about Morgan in the sixth grade, or laugh at story about Carina's borderline insanity, or laugh not because something was funny but because it felt right just to be laying there, with each other, after so long.

It seemed like the laughter made the time they spent not like this worth it.

Well... The sex was up there, too.


	27. The Princess Bride

"Death cannot stop true love.  
All it can do is delay it for awhile."

- Westley, _The Princess Bride_

When he leaves her on the platform in Prague, she does her best to remove him from her thoughts completely, as if he was a dead man too painful to remember. But at some point she realizes that every time she kisses Shaw she is waiting for the smile that always crossed Chuck's face when they kissed. She fights the feeling of inevitability for as long as she can before whiskey and plastic guitars do her in.

They've had delays, and they may have made sense at the time, but she can't remember a good reason for any of them when she looks at him in front of General Beckman and tells the older woman that her and Chuck are dating.

Exclusively.


	28. Closer

"There's a moment.  
There's always a moment.  
"I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it."  
And I don't know when your moment was,  
but I bet you there was one."

- Alice, _Closer_

He doesn't think he could ever live with himself if he broke her heart. So when she says it, when she finally says "I love you," he decides in that moment that he can't do it. He can't tell her that he has a death sentence hanging over him, can't tell her that his fate is all but sealed, can't tell her that he is basically one of those quarters you put in the slot of those huge plastic funnels that will circle that central hole slowly for what feels like forever, but as he gets closer to the end that circle will tighten and accelerate until it falls, unceremoniously, with a plop into the bottom of the barrel, with a thousand other quarters just like it.

He probably should, but he's never been that brave.


	29. Bad News Bears

"You can take your apology and your trophy and shove 'em straight up your ass!"  
- Tanner Boyle, _Bad News Bears_

The truth is, she doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want to hear his explanations, his apologies. She doesn't want to hear him be reasonable. She just wants to not see him, to not think of the words "I can't" whenever she _does_ see him, to not feel bad for mirroring them when she told him "You can't" in reference to hurting her. She wants to be in Cabo with Bryce or Fiji with Cole or San Tropez with Carina. She wants to be on a train leaving Prague or Ellie's wedding reception or a hotel in Barstow. She wants to tell him that he can shove his apologies and his shiny new Intersect up his self-sacrificing ass. She wants to tell him she misses him.

She doesn't know what she wants and that's the most frustrating thing, really.


	30. While You Were Sleeping

"It's just, I never met anyone I could laugh with, you know?"  
-Lucy Eleanor Moderatz, _While You Were Sleeping_

It's the first night she sleeps in their bed in their apartment that the significance of plural pronouns - the we's and our's and their's - hits her, and she can see a whole time line of shared memories unfurl.

The first thing she had told him that had been even remotely true about herself was that he was funny. It helped her cover and helped buy his trust but mostly it was just true. He had made her laugh, and not forced cover laughs that were exaggerated like the features of a caricature, but laughs that made her feel even warmer than Bryce's smile. So, when she sees that time line stretched out to some infinite horizon, she knows that it should be scary (and it kind of is) but it's also beautiful and it's also funny and that's entirely because he'll be on that time line, too.

He snores.

She giggles.


	31. Author's Note

**A word from the author:**

So.

_Other People's Words_ was supposed to be all I did with Chuck fanfiction. After I wrote my two-shot Left Unsaid, which was just a little thing about 3.07 that I wrote waiting for new Chuck episodes during the Olympics, I thought I'd keep a drabble fic going, just because it would be simple and short and fun and I wouldn't have to think too deeply about it.

Then you guys happened.

The response to Other People's Words was, well, kind of fantastic. While the review count is dwarfed now by my serial, Chuck vs the Simple Twist of Fate, it's still my most viewed story, across any fandom. You reviewed, and gushed. You nominated me for Best New Author and Best Short Story in the Awesome Awards. What could I do but continue writing for this show?

Other People's Words has been sitting at 28 chapters for awhile now, incomplete, and I figured I just had to finish it off with something. I'd been searching for movie quotes for awhile, but it took someone other than me to pick out the last two. So, for that, I'd like to think _Wepdiggy_ for the quote for Chapter 29 and _Frea O'Scanlin_ for Chapter 30.

I hope you enjoyed it. This fic, in a roundabout way, has brought me friends that I know I'll keep well beyond Chuck fic and even the show Chuck. It's indirectly helped fuel my confidence and inspired me to attempt some "legitimate" writing. And that, I say, is thanks to the readers. I can't thank you enough.

And you reviewers (that's coreymon77, jagged1, lindsski, Afficted, :), NickyR, Kent Rigel, Crime-Fights-Evil-With-Batman, wassupchuck, Darkshine, you_re_such_a_nerd, Venillashiz, EdieRose, explodingplanet, Next2NormalAddict, jocular monoceros, ffreaderwriter, Representin' All Day, ILgolfer, holst, and CiciRose) I've got to give you double the props. Especially those of you who reviewed almost every single little drabble.

Thanks so much.

- Chris (I Am Not Amused)


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